Saturday, December 12, 2009

Raining Cats and Dogs

I was thinking of different phrases today while driving in the rain. Phrases which are strange when you think about it. One such is, “Raining cats and dogs.” Then there’s, “Flying off the handle,” and “Make no bones about it.” Really visually strange sayings when you give them some thought.

There are so many of these in our language that we’ve just grown up with, but we seldom question their origins.

I found a website where they go into a bit of research into phrases; it looks like it’s from the UK. I looked up some, and it’s really very interesting. Like what are the possible originals of, “The whole nine yards,” or “Dressed to the nines.”

Check out some of the expressions you can think of via the link below, and click on the “Meanings and Origins” button: